Copyright (c) 2006 David Nevogt

I have a little tip for you here today and I'm convinced that it's going to help you a lot. It's about pitching and chipping on uneven lies.

Not every lie around the green is flat where the ball is sitting even with your feet and you could bend over and give it a nice little whack.

Sometimes you have downhill pitch shots, uphill chip shots, ball below your feet chip shots, and ball above your feet pitch shots.

All right, now let me go over this with you real quick so you understand it.

When you're making a full golf swing, it's very important that you pay close attention to all of your uneven lies.

Remember, if you're going uphill on a full swing, make sure your shoulders are level to the slope you're on. If you're going downhill on a full swing, make sure your shoulders are level to the slope you're on.

So, here it is. If you're going uphill, you want to stand to the slope. If you're going downhill, you want to stand to the slope.

If the ball's below your feet on a full swing, you want to make sure that you bend way over and bend your knees. And if the ball is above your feet, make sure that you stand up tall and sit back on your bottom.

But it's different when you're chipping and pitching.

Make sure that when you have uneven lies that you don't change your chipping and pitching stance and setup. Remember, for pitching and chipping, stance and setup, ball in the middle, weight left, handle left, and you're standing in this fashion, where 60% of your weight, 70% of your weight's on your left side, and you swing your arms up and down.

When you have an uneven lie, don't change that. The reason why? The swing isn't that long and you don't shift your weight back over to your right side.

So, when you're on your uneven lies around the greens, don't change your setup away from the traditional pitching and chipping setup.

Now, let's talk about the backswing when you're pitching. This could be one of the most misunderstood parts of the weekend golfer's short game or pitching problems.

I own three pitching wedges. I own three wedges. I own a pitching wedge, a sand wedge and one that's sort of in the middle. They go three very different distances.

But let me explain something to you about the backswing that will help you a lot. Most amateurs that miss/hit their pitch shots make a big windup every time, and then they slow down to match up how far they want it to go.

So, if they have a pitch shot, they wind it up and slow down and hope they match up how far they needed to go. Two holes later, if they have to pitch it a little bit further, they make a bigger windup and they try to slow down.

The only way to hit a pitch shot is to make sure that the backswing is broken down into three parts. And this is what I mean. This is a small pitch shot. I take the golf club back where the shaft is parallel to the ground, but I have a nice followthrough that continues on after I make impact.

If I want the ball to go a little bit further, then my next length swing is where the shaft is pointing into the ground, and this goes a little bit further, but it's the same followthrough.

And lastly, if I have a pitch shot and I want it to go all the way to the back of the green, I make a full swing with the arms, not with the body, with the same followthrough.

Now, let me start with the next part. The direction that you swing the golf club is very important.

So, after you get your setup, the arms swing the golf club just slightly up and down on an arc. The arc has a little curve inside, not inside to your right foot and not away from your body in the backswing. The weight stays left and the arms swing up and down.

Thanks, and have a great day.